Lion Literature Looks
By Harold Aurand, Jr.
We often get questions from PSU fans about books covering various topics around Penn
State. Fans often ask which books in particular may be good reading on the Nittany
Lions, from football to the Blue Band and everything in between. In order to help you
get an idea of which PSU related books might be worth a read, we will be featuring
periodic reviews of books covering PSU topics.
Ron Bracken. Replays: A Collection of Veteran Penn State Football Writer Ron
Bracken’s Award-winning Articles and Personal Favorites. (State College: Nittany
Printing and Publishing Company, Inc., 2003, Pp. 187, $14.95 Paperback)
Ron Bracken is a name familiar to most Penn State football fans. For over thirty years he
has covered Nittany Lion and local high school sports for the Centre Daily Times. His
1996 book Nittany Lions Handbook is probably the best short history of Penn State’s
program, and is certainly the best illustrated. Bracken’s writing has won two national and
ten state awards for sports journalism.
As the title suggests, Bracken’s new book is a collection of articles from his Centre Daily
Times career. The first half of the book is a series of interviews Bracken conducted with
former Penn State players in 1990. He says he originally hoped they would be published
as a separate book, but couldn’t find anyone willing to support the project. That’s
surprising for a couple of reasons. An earlier book of interviews by Frank Bilovsky titled
Lion Country: Inside Penn State Football was published by The Leisure Press in 1982,
and is now long out of print. It was fairly successful. Further, Bracken’s interviews are
very good. He spoke to players from what most would be considered to be Penn State’s
glory years, 1967 through 1986. Some of the players are the ones you might expect, like
Denny Onkotz and Charlie Pittman. Others are less prominent. Jack Curry, the spindly
possession receiver who had 117 receptions between 1965 and 1967, Neal Smith, the
walk-on All-American from the 1968-69 perfect teams, Gary Gray, the undersized
linebacker who led the defense in the 1972 Cotton Bowl, are examples. They all give
good insight into what it was like wearing the blue and white and playing for Coach
Paterno.
In a non-football way what stands out in the interviews is just how successful all of the
players Bracken chose were in their later careers. Several players became doctors, while
others achieved fairly substantial success in private business. This whole section of the
book tends to re-enforce the idea of the Grand Experiment and the Penn State way.
Anyone still depressed over 2003’s 3-9 season, or recent player brushes with the law, will
read Bracken’s interviews and feel their old enthusiasm coming back. About the only
thing this part of the book could have used are pictures of all the players in game action.
The second half of the book is more of a mixed bag, especially if you’re just interested in
Penn State sports. There is a long retrospective covering Matt Suhey’s career from the
time he was at State College High School, through his Nittany Lion career, till his
retirement from the Chicago Bears. Bracken has included his columns written the day
after the 1979 and 1983 Sugar Bowls, and 1987 Fiesta Bowl. Shorter articles focus on
Pete Curkendall, J.T. Morris, and Kelly Sullivan, a walk-on who never played a down for
Penn State, but whose father was a noted mafia hit man. There is also an article on
George Audu, a long-jumper on the Penn State track team.
Other columns are on non-Penn State topics, such as the death of Maryland basketball
player Len Bias, or more local subjects like Centre County’s heroes from World War II.
These are all very well done. Bracken does a great job of humanizing his subjects, so
you get to feel like you really know them. His eulogy for his former Boy Scout leader
was particularly touching. About the only bad part of the non-Penn State articles is their
impact on the cover. In one selection from 1995, Bracken is discussing the Centre
County Baseball League, and particularly the towns that are no longer able to support
teams. There is a picture of Bracken sitting on the weedy, overgrown bleachers of
Coleville’s old stadium. This was selected as the cover. Stylistically, it makes sense.
Bracken’s whole book is about his looking back over his career, and in the picture he is
sitting on an old stadium, presumably looking back at the games that were played there.
The choice, however, makes it hard to identify the book as one about Penn State football.
Readers may have to look close before they find Replays, and may not recognize it when
they see it.
That would be too bad, because even though the entire book doesn’t deal with Penn State
athletics this is the one from last year’s crop of books no fan will want to be without. The
first section of the book is worth the purchase price by itself. Bracken has done a very
good job.